•

UPS is laying off more employees amid effort to boost profitability

UPS is laying off more employees amid effort to boost profitability | Chattanooga Times Free Press

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2024/sep/10/ups-is-laying-off-more-employees-tfp/

Sandy Springs-based UPS is laying off more of its employees, after earlier this year announcing it was cutting 12,000 jobs in its management ranks.

UPS is laying off more employees amid effort to boost profitability | Chattanooga Times Free Press

Sandy Springs-based UPS is laying off more of its employees, after earlier this year announcing it was cutting 12,000 jobs in its management ranks.

UPS made $7 Billion dollars net profit last year. It was a decline from the 11.5 Billion net profit they made in 2022.

43 comments

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

The number must go up. Humans who need to earn a living be damned.

Yawweee877h444

•

Billionaires and CEOs and investors need more. What is this "human need" nonsense you speak of?

No human, only billionaire matter.

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

Human who needs to earn a living /= CEO or billionaire. CEOs and billionaires are just grifters.

Yawweee877h444

•

Yeah no shit Sherlock

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

Sorry I mistook your initial reply as sarcasm. No vindictiveness intended or needed.

thatsnothowyoudoit

•

IsThisAnAI

•

What is your expectation of how much staff should be kept on when not needed?

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

Who said they are not needed? Are they "not needed" because, while profitable, they need to make more profit? We need to add some skepticism whenever c-suite people lay people off because it is almost always because moar profit.

IsThisAnAI

•

UPS has. They believe they can run the business more efficiently without them. So what's the percentage of people they should be keep on after this decision that they are being inefficient?

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

They made 7 billion in profit last year. These layoffs are not because they evaluated these layoffs from any other perspective other than how much can we get away with to make more than 7 billion?

IsThisAnAI

•

If they can keep up the same level of service with less people I fail to see the problem. Do you expect business to intentionally operate inefficiently just to keep people employed?

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

Your definition of efficiency is not compatible with mine. Layoffs here are entirely based on profit increase, not efficiency. They will gladly trade inefficiency for increase in profit. They will gladly trade the sanity of those laid off, and of those who have to pick up the slack by working more and spending less time outside of work. Wealth extraction is a greedy gambit to increase profit at any cost year over year. CEOs will gladly bite the hand that feeds them, get bonuses for investor payouts, and get their golden parachute once it goes sour. They are pariahs.

IsThisAnAI

•

If you want to invent stuff then sure, I guess we can't come to terms.

some_guy

•

They believe they can make fewer people do more work. This has nothing to do with efficiency.

IsThisAnAI

•

UPS has one of the largest unions on the planet, you don't think this was discussed and agreed on?

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

All I heard was an existing or future MBA talking from those comments. MBAs exist to defend the choices of CEOs.

IsThisAnAI

•

Blah blah blah blah blah I can't address the simple questions.

apfelwoiSchoppen

•

You clearly cannot read.

TransplantedSconie

•

Driver here. This is Carol doing Carol things.

She hired too many middle management types and not enough drivers, then after the union forced her hand to hire more drivers, she had to lay off the non union guys and gals that she shouldn't have hired in the first place.

She also, in her grand $100 million a year wisdom, closed all the customer counters because fuck you that's why.

Boozilla

•

Interesting that they are laying off managers while "moving towards more automation". I'm guessing they mean draconian employee-monitoring hardware and software installed in the vehicles, warehouses, repair facilities, etc.

avidamoeba

•

They're unionised so I doubt they can go too far in this regard. I'm guessing it's more of useful automation rather than Big Brother tech.

Boozilla

•

I hope you're right!

homesweethomeMrL

•

a.k.a. "AI", which they've already spent hundreds of millions on and have nothing to show yet.

WhyFlip

•

Figuratively speaking, AI is just beginning to learn to walk. Yet, so many, such as yourself, have jumped on the AI baby bashing train.

homesweethomeMrL

•

I’m on the “blow all the capital on massively overhyped unproven tech that will take a decade to thrash out and then fire everyone but oops you mean it’s not ready yet well let’s diminish the service to run on a skeleton crew who won’t leave cause jobs are scarce and keep our ridiculous unearned bonuses to live like the kings we are”-Executive bashing train.

Bashing babies has very little to do with it, actually. Hmph!

CmdrShepard42

•

Coincidentally, my UPS packages have all been delayed over the last two weeks. One was supposedly delayed from CA to OR because of "weather" which is odd as it has been sun and mostly mild temps over the last week. Another had it's tracking showing "we don't have the package yet" right up until the morning that it was delivered.

Buelldozer

•

One was supposedly delayed from CA to OR because of “weather” which is odd as it has been sun and mostly mild temps over the last week.

Not to defend UPS too much but enormous wildfires probably go in as "weather".

California.

Oregon.

TransplantedSconie

•

Yeah, we don't have a "catastrophic wildfire" as a delay tag yet.

Key word is yet.

cygnus

•

I find it hard to criticize a company for culling middle management. Most of those jobs are useless at best and detrimental at worst.

homesweethomeMrL

•

HA! The Marketing and Sales jobs will go untouched, there is no doubt. IT managers, get ready to sling some boxes. Customer Service? Dang I forgot you were still here, ha ha - gtfo.

TransplantedSconie

•

They closed all the customer counters. So if you want your shit and have to sign for it, you better be there or you are SOL.

CmdrShepard42

•

I tend to agree but also see the other side of it in the corporation that I work for. There are a lot of stupid tasks that need to be done that are best handled by someone in middle management as it doesn't take the managed employees away from the actual work and is something that needs to be done even if it outside the scope of our actual work.

Where I am, it's selfishness, backstabbing, and politics that are the biggest hinderence from middle managers. Without being specific, you might have someone proposing an idea that, when implemented, will sound good on paper and make them look good while actually causing our work to be completed more slowly. Additionally, you have other people who have the answers to specific problems we face as employees, but they don't want to share it because they won't get credit and a promotion for it.

Seleni

•

They’re doing it too much though. Lots of onroads are being forced to work 10-14 hour days, multiple days in a row. They cut support staff so those few people have to do more.

And they’re not firing/retaining by who does a good job or who has more skills. They’re doing it randomly. One guy I know, one of the best dispatchers in his center, got kicked out because they drew lots on who to fire.

Rhaedas

•

I don't doubt some of this is optimization in the middle. But they (as with so many companies) have expressed interest in reducing the working force with AI and robotics too. Mechanical workers show up for work, don't have HR or other issues to deal with, and can work when you need them. I.e. cheaper in even the short run. Now with UPS being union there's going to be a bit of friction there, but they'll figure it out. Maybe give a bit more to the workers who are allowed to stay (which is good for them I suppose). Other companies that don't have that protection, well...there's other jobs, right?

IsThisAnAI

•

Peak Lemmy. These 20000 people will just self organize 🤣

There is usually room for optimization but pretending like you didn't need middle management is a big tell you've never actually done this, studied it, and are ignorant on the topic. But yeah I'm sure billionaires are paying these folks out of charity 🙄.

Reverendender

•

~~What is it going to take to remove this future pension funding bullshit?~~ Oops!

n2burns

•

The article doesn't say anything about pensions. Are you confusing UPS with USPS?

Reverendender

•

I am indeed. I saw the letters U P S and "profitability" and jumped the gun. I will leave my comment up so my shame is immortalized.

empireOfLove2

•

An honorable commenter, you are. Rare as platinum in this world